Arizona weekly citizen., 1887-08-13
CR0QUET AS A SCIENCE.
A GAME FOR EXPERTS AND NOT eoe CHILDREN AND PARSONS ONLY

The Modern Croquet Ground Mad. n,
 Dirt Rolled Hard and LeveI-Hits Hard
 to MAke-Few Ladies Attempt sei.n-
 tific Play.
 Even as set up on ordinary lawns. with arches six inches wide, croquet is A oama that requires an amount of head1vork fully as great as is needed to play a good game of billiards. A man who is a very ordinary shot can win from one who hits with great accuracy if his headwork is de cidedly superior. Of course, I am talkino now about the four ball game; the game with one ball apiece is to the other yha, euchre is to whist.
 III these things are true of the game a., ordinarily laid out, they are multiplied in force many times when the ground is a perfectly. level sanded dirt floor. when tbe arches are only one-fourth of an inch wider than the balls, and when both play CTS are skillful enough 10 hit an exposed ball from end to end of the ground and to hide their adversary's ball behind a wicket with great accuracy.
 The modern croquet ground is made ot dirt rolled as hard as need be and made as level as a billiard table It is surrounded by slightly raised border, so that halls do not go out of bounds. To prevent roll. ing the surface is sanded slightly. The wickets are set firmly in a block of wood planted ten inches deep in the ground, and are of thick enough wire to resist a heavy blow. The balls are of hard rubber, 14 inches in diameter. The wickets are 5 1-2 inches inside measurement. The mallets may be of any pattern or size tha, suits the fancy of the player. but the most approved style is one with a head ten inches long, having hard rubber ends SC. cured by q steel band, and with a handle about fourteen inches long and rough. ened so as to secure the grip. The best of them screw into the head and are per. fectly round. The ground is laid ou, with two stakes of iron less than an inch in diameter, two wickets at each end and two on each side, in a line with the second arch from the stake and with a double middle wicket set crOsswise. This middle wicket consists of two arches like the rest joined over the top and about fifteen inches apart. The ball must be sen, through both of these at a single shot The only way to do this, with fair pros. pect of success, is to take roquet from a ball short distance from the arch and get in the jaws of the first of the pair oi wickets and at the next blow go through them both.
 HARD TO ACCOMPLISH.
 To get in position in any other way is next to impossible, because if the center of the ball is as much as q sixteenth of an inch to one side of line drawn directly through the center of both wickets you cannot go through without carrom, and carroms, iR croquet, are mighty uncertain things for most people tO try Professor Charles JacObus. of New Brunswick, can make the shot l have described at the center wicket, and he introduced it with great success in last years national tour nament at Norwich. It is now called after him-the Jacobus shot. A year or two before that. while he was living at Matawan. he introduced another carrOm, which has since been called the ''Matawan twist" His adveIsary's ball was in the "cage," as the double center wicket is called His own was on the other side of the corner wicket, almost in the jaws of it, and directly wired from the ball in the cage and from the other balls. Mir. Ja- cobus struck the further wire of the cor ner wicket, carrOmed from it, going through the arch, and hit the ball resting with such apparent security in the cage. It is not often, however, that games are won by such sensational shots. It is steady, accurate play and good manage ment that tell in the long run.
 had often wished for a standard of eomparisoh between persons who play a good ordinary game like myself and the real exuerts I made the comparison the other day, and it came out just as l ex- pected. In nine out of ten games the man who is called a splendid player" by his very ordinary competitors would make about two arches playing with Mir. Jacobus, or Dr. Reed, or NIT. BOtsford, or any other of the cracks, and the chances are that he would not get hold of the balls at all during the game. With s week s practice. and after becoming used to the ground and the narrow arches, he might do better. and bother the expert seriously, but he would not be likely to win a single game the first year.
 OUGHT TO BE ABLE.
 Furthermore, no man has any business to try to play on such ground who can not hit ball almost infallibly at dozen or fifteen feet, and who cannot, after get ting a ball to play on, make the circuit of the arches on an ordinary ground once out of three or four times at least. He ought also to be able to make the different sorts of roouets-to send the driven ball long distance while his own only moves few feet. to send the two along together, and to send his own further than the driven ball. It Is very handy, too, on occasion to be able to make jump shot '-thal is. to jump over ball you are dead oI and hit another one beyond and Tn line with it.
 According to the rules in force in the National association, a ball is in play as soon as it is placed at the starting point ready for the first tap. It is usual among the experts not to attempt the first wlckei on the first shOt-the consequences oi failure would be too seriOus-but to knock down to the far corner, where the follow ing player is not likely to get hold of him. The gre..t thing, of course, is to get hold of the balls. send your antagonists next hall behind a wicket, and keep your own halls well together, making wickets when you can, and never allowing him to get shot except from behind wire.
 When the game is played in this way, fl may be finished in ten or fifteen mn utes. but if the players get hold Of the halls alternately, and make errors once ID a while. as all merely human beings VIII, occasionally. the game may last for seven hours. as one of the games at the tourna- ment did last August.
 As yet but very few ladies attempt scientific croquet, but there is no reason why they should not The short handled mallets necessitate rather ungraceiul positions, but ladies need not use short handled nallets if they prefer grace tc accuracy. But this kind of croquet IS moi an exhibition game, adapted to the display of graceful attitudes and pretty dresses. and meant only to bring people together in pleasant social relations NC one can play it who does not love the game for it's own sake, and whose thouchts are not directed, for the time uhoIly to the business in hand.-W. A. platt in New York Mail and Express.
 The warm bath in many cases or sleep lesspess has been found a valuable meas pre.